Vol. 39, No. 3, Summer 2014 OCTE Fall Conference October 4, 2014 ~ Wilsonville Greetings and welcome to a new school year! I hope you are rested, refreshed, and eager. I have checked my class lists and look forward to meeting the smiling kids already met in school photos. I can’t wait to pair each with just the right books to ignite a passion for reading. As you plan your year, please mark your calendar for our annual Fall Conference on Saturday, October 4, at Wilsonville High School. It is coming up soon and is the best professional development around. Twenty-two presentations for all grade levels, K–16, AND you’ll get to hear from Oregon Spirit Book Award winning authors Susan Fletcher, April Henry, Cat Winters, Deborah Hopkinson, Chris Bolton, H. Joseph Hopkins, and Elizabeth Rusch. If that weren’t enough— continental breakfast and lunch are included, you’ll get one of the award-winning books free, and you’ll hear keynoter Brian Doyle, the much-decorated essayist, novelist (don’t miss the fabulous Mink River), and editor whose work has appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, American Scholar, Commonweal , San Francisco Chronicle, and Newsday and many more publications. I’m proud of our organization and all we accomplished last year during our centennial celebration. We are teachers like you who love teaching and value literacy, and we couldn’t do what we do without your support. Here’s to a fabulous year! Karen K. Johnson, President Conference News Pages 1, 3–4 Book Review Page 5 Chalkboard is the newsletter of the Oregon Council of Teachers of Eng- lish, an organization that has existed for 100 years to support teachers of English and the language arts in Oregon elementary and secondary schools, community colleges and universities. Chalkboard is our way of keeping our many members and friends in- formed about OCTE activities, pro- grams of the National Council of Teachers of English, conferences and learning opportunities for students, research tidbits, book recommenda- tions, and more. Chalkboard is a member of the NCTE Information Exchange. For inquiries, please contact: OCTE P.O. Box 9126 Portland, OR 97207-9126 Editor: Peter Thacker [email protected] Brian Doyle, STORIES SAVE LIVES Brian Doyle on Brian Doyle with an Introductory Assist from Your Editor Do you want to know Brian Doyle as a storyteller? Here is a potent mix: Start with the humor and forthrightness of Sherman Alexie, add omas Merton’s questing, William Stafford’s conscience, and end with the once-upon-a-great-notion, epic Merry Pranksterism of Ken Kesey. How could you not come to Wilsonville to hear all that zany wisdom and Northwest spirit in one fell swoop? Now, read what Brian wants you to know: Brian Doyle is all the usual things you would expect him to be when he mumbles and chants at the OCTE conference—he’s written many books of fiction and essays and poems, and he’s won this award and that award for his work, including the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the way cooler Oregon Coast Literature Award, which is chosen by the students at Seaside High! But you never heard a guy more convinced that stories matter, stories save lives, stories are crucial holy wild food, stories are the slender pillars on which we build lives and countries and the astonishing future, stories are how we hold hands and fend off greed and violence and the murder of memory, stories are how kids tiptoe out from behind their brokenness and fears and masks toward who they might amazingly be; and it is this latter conviction, which he will thrash toward expressing. And maybe he’ll talk about basketball and hawks if we have time. President’s Letter Awards & Activities Page 2 Book Review 5 Non-Profit Org. US Postage PAID Portland, OR Permit No. 1388 OREGON COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH OCTE Chalkboard PO Box 9126 Portland, OR 97207-9126 Please Post OREGON COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH 2014 Fall Conference • Saturday, October 4 WILSONVILLE HIGH SCHOOL • 6800 SW WILSONVILLE RD. • WILSONVILLE, OREGON PRE-REGISTRATION FORM Pre-registration deadline: September 23, 2014 Name ___________________________________________ Street Address ____________________________________ City _____________________________________________ State/Zip ________________________________________ Phone ___________________________________________ School __________________________________________ E-Mail address(es) ____________________________________________________________________________________ CONFERENCE REGISTRATION ~ INCLUDES MEALS Number Amount Non-OCTE member $105 OCTE member $75 Full-time student/retiree $45 Total .................................... $ On-site registration will be $115 for everyone. A group pre-registration for 5 or more OCTE members is available at $60 each. Must request a group form by email [email protected]. Pre-registration deadline: September 23, 2014. For information see octe.org Make checks payable to OCTE and send to: Barbara Wiegele 14867 SE Orchid Avenue • Milwaukie OR 97267-2454 You may register on-line at octe.org Conference Schedule: 7:30 a.m. ~ Registration/Free Book/ Continental Breakfast/Exhibits 8:20 a.m. ~ Concurrent Sessions 9:30 a.m. ~ Concurrent Sessions 10:40 a.m. ~ General Session, Brian Doyle 11:30 a.m. ~ General Session, OSBA Authors 12:10 p.m. ~ Lunch/Autographing/Exhibits 1:20 p.m. ~ Concurrent Sessions 2:30 p.m. ~ Concurrent Sessions B OOK Review of Reign of Error: e Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools by Diane Ravitch, Vintage Press, 2014 If you’ve been teaching for a decade or more, you probably have had this little nagging voice in the back of your head that teachers no longer seem to be held in even the middle-level esteem we used to be. High profile documentaries like Waiting for Superman, union busting moves around the country, and government policies designed to connect teachers’ evaluations to student performance on standardized tests have all had a demoralizing effect on our profession. And in case you thought that these were part of just a typical pendulum swing, Diane Ravitch’s most recent book, Reign of Error (2014), makes it clear that all of these moves are part of a deliberate, organized, and well-funded effort by the school privatization movement to make public schools appear broken. By tracking years of data on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), Ravitch convincingly points out, that despite all the rhetoric and hand wringing of politicians and policy makers, scores on reading and math have been steadily rising and that we currently have the highest graduation rates in US history. Ravitch’s voice, because of her own decades-long association with the accountability movement she has turned so vehemently against, is the perfect one to take on the usual suspects—Bill Gates, Teach for America, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, and others—who are adding fuel to the growing privatization fire at the expense of the public schools. While she spends over three-quarters of this highly readable book identifying the problem and connecting the dots, the solutions she proposes are mostly at the 10,000-foot level and out of most teachers’ reach: strengthening the teaching profession with higher entry standards, addressing the re-segregation of many of America’s schools, and raising the standard of living of our country’s poor. As a classroom teacher often called out at dinner parties and family gatherings to defend the “woeful” state of American education, I appreciate Ravitch’s support, but she too, like so many would-be reformers, fails to recognize what David Kirp recently pointed out in a New York Times editorial called “Teaching is Not a Business”— it is “impossible to improve education by doing an end run around inherently complicated and messy human relationships.” Only classroom teachers, who are working every day with their students, are the ones with the knowledge, relationships, and credibility to bring about true reform. Fortunately, I read Ravitch with a book group of teachers, and over a beverage or two, we remembered that we are not alone in this impossible job of ours, reminding ourselves of our individual and collective commitment to public education for all. Reviewed by John Golden Cleveland High School, Portland, Oregon Join us on Facebook! is is the fastest way to stay in touch and see what the English community is doing across the state. “Like” us and share with a friend! R E V I E W